FLAVOR LOG // 006

Date Mar 16th: When the tasting room agrees. 

Today we taste tested Jelly Donut flavored coffee. When we first started developing this flavor, we weren't convinced it would make the final lineup. On paper, it sounded like one of those flavors that would get a laugh in the tasting room and then quietly disappear into the pile of ideas that were fun to try but never quite good enough to release. That happens more often than people would think. One of the easiest mistakes to make when you're developing flavored coffee is falling in love with the idea instead of the coffee. The coffee has to be genuinely good enough to earn the spot.

Some flavors are clever. Some are technically impressive. Some are good but have been done so many times they've become predictable. Every flavor has to taste exactly like what it's supposed to taste like, but even that isn't enough. Jelly Donut was good from the beginning.

By the time it reached the tasting stage, we had three different formulations. None of them were bad. If they had been, they never would have made it this far. The question wasn't whether we had a good Jelly Donut coffee. The question was whether we had the Jelly Donut coffee.

One thing we've learned over the years is that tasting rooms are surprisingly easy to influence. If one person says, "I love the raspberry in this one," everyone else suddenly starts looking for raspberry. If someone declares a favorite too early, it's amazing how quickly the room begins to agree.

So we have a policy: Don't lead the witness.

Nobody says anything until everyone has had a chance to smell the coffee first. Aroma is the first thing our customers experience, so it's the first thing we evaluate. Then we taste. Slowly. People go back to the same cup two or three times. Sometimes they change their minds. Sometimes they don't. Only after everyone has had a chance to form an opinion do we start talking.

At today's tasting, the room was unusually quiet.

People kept moving back and forth between the three cups, taking another sip here, another sip there. Nobody wanted to be the first person to say anything.

Then someone broke the silence.

"This is the one."

There wasn't a debate after that. This was one of the rare occasions where it was understood that the comment didn't change anyone's mind. It simply gave everyone permission to admit what they'd already been thinking. We had a winner. 

After you've developed enough flavored coffees, you learn these moments don't happen very often and when they do, you pay attention.

Mission Status: Formulation #3 advanced to production.